Toronto investment banker settles U.S. insider-trading case

NEW YORK – A former Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce investment banker on Tuesday agreed to pay $340,000 to settle charges brought by U.S. regulators that he illegally traded ahead of a buyout offer for Tomkins Plc based on information he gleaned from his job.

Richard Bruce Moore, 49, was charged in a civil complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The agency said Moore had bought Tomkins ADRs, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange, several weeks before the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and private equity firm Onex Corp announced plans in July 2010 to buy the UK manufacturing and engineering company.

The 49-year-old Toronto resident made $163,000 on the Tomkins trades, after the securities jumped 27 percent on the day the deal was announced, according to the complaint.

The SEC said the Ontario Securities Commission also brought related action against Moore for insider trading in Tomkins common stock.

The Canadian pension investment board was one of Moore's top clients at CIBC in 2010, the SEC said. Moore learned of the pending deal from an unnamed friend who was a managing director at the investment board.

The complaint does not implicate the friend. Rather, it says that Moore pieced together that a deal was pending, including by observing an encounter between the friend and Tomkins' CEO at a charity event.

Herbert Janick, a lawyer for Moore, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Kevin Dove, a spokesman for CIBC, said that CIBC was not a subject of the SEC investigation. Moore did not comply with bank policies regarding disclosure of accounts outside of CIBC and did not receive CIBC approval for the investment, Dove said.

Moore resigned from the bank in 2011, Dove said.

Linda Sims, a spokeswoman for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Kevin Callahan, an SEC spokesman, declined to comment on the settlement.